Saturday, 16 June 2012

Sony is continuing its commitment to product support by bringing the latest and greatest in Android to these mid-range phones. A few days ago we already let you know that the Xperia mini pro is getting Android 4.0 worldwide. The same seems to apply to the Sony Live with Walkman as well.

The updates are hardly surprising as the Sony update roadmap had it these two would be getting their ICS fix starting on the last week of May.

Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference is about to start tomorrow and as usual, it's a big industry event - one, which has seen the announcements of new iPhones, new iPods and iOS versions in recent years.

Eye-witness photos of the Moscone West convention center, where the event is held, show the place is being rigged up for tomorrow's event. And the new banners confirm the highlight of the opening Keynote will be iOS 6, the next iteration of the mobile OS.

LG announced today that they will be launching their Optimus 4X HD this month in several European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, and Italy, right on plan, actually.

The LG Optimus 4X HD was announced back at the MWC in February, where we got a pretty good lookat it. Unfortunately, that was it, as the Koreans have been taking their time with the market release of the smartphone.

The Asus Padfone has made its way to the United States in an unlocked state, ready to entice prospective buyers with a knack for something other than the run of the mill smartphone/tablet combo. The curiously talented handset however comes far from being the most sensible offering in the high-end Android realm - its price is simply eye-watering.

The WWDC press conference is just hours away, but the rumors just can't stop coming in. This morning the Chinese forum WeiPhone.com brought links to the first builds of iOS for the different iDevices.

The links still aren't working, but the community can be credited to several such leaks in the past so chances are they will become active once the beta goes official tonight. Yet the fact that Apple will be making the beta available for download is hardly newsworthy and neither is its alien-sounding 10A5316k build number.

What's actually important here is that there's no link to the build for the original iPad, suggesting that it might be left out of the iOS 6 party. The iPhone 3GS is on the list, though, so the reason for this is hardly related to processing power.

Perhaps Apple thought there's little point to prolong the life of a device that has been vastly outsold by both its successors and has a tiny market share, but then again that also applies to the 3GS.

While Elop's statement sounded more like PR talk (Lumia phones are exclusively single-core), Bell says that Intel have run in-house tests to reach the conclusion. Apparently, it's the thread scheduler that needs work.

After leaving the factories yesterday the LG Optimus 4X HD is already available for purchase in Europe. Germany is the only country to have received it so far, though.

The white version of the quad-core LG Optimus 4X HD is currently retailing for €505 over at Amazon.de and doesn't require any commitment. That's a pretty attractive price given the package you are getting and even more so considering that it will drop a bit when availability extends. Sadly, if you are after the black version of the Optimus 4X, you are in no luck, as that one isn't on sale just yet.

It's customary for a new mobile OS version to bring an improved web browser and that's one of the first things to get tested. iOS 6 was only announced yesterday ,but the default browser of its beta version was already subjected to a few tests.

Apple has just announced the next version of its iOS platform for the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad. iOS 6 has an updated Siri, Facebook integration and completely new Maps application with built-in turn-by-turn navigation as its key features.

The updated Siri

The evolved Siri got the most stage time – it now launches apps, can fetch you news and facts about sports, movies, people, read your notifications. Apple is working with BMW, GM, Mercedes, Land Rover, Jaguar, Audi, Toyota, Chrysler, Honda and others in an attempt to put a dedicated Siri button on the steering wheel on all cars throughout the next 12 months. This would enable completely hands-free operation of your iDevice when you are driving.

Nokia USA has posted a series of teaser images on Facebook with June 18, 2012 on them, which naturally caused quite a stir. Initially, it was thought that Nokia's news will be somewhat related to Microsoft's announcement, which is bound to take place on the same date. A careful examination of the photos however points at an announcement of Nokia 808 Pureview availability in the United States.

Today Nokia announced that EQT VI (an investment fund that's part of a private equity group in Northern Europe) is ready to acquire Vertu for unannounced amount.

Founded by Nokia in 1998 and headquartered in the UK, Vertu currently employs around 1,000 people worldwide. It has steadily seen constant growth these past years and it's the undisputed leader in the luxury phone segment.

After announcing that Vertu is ready to go, Nokia re-confirmed that they are staking a lot on mobile imaging and photography by announcing their planned acquisition of everything imaging technology Scalado had to offer.

Founded in 2000 and based in Sweden, Scalado has been a close partner of Nokia for quite some time. Scalado doesn't have many end user products, but it develops some fascinating imaging technologies for manufacturers, such as Nokia.

The bad news from Nokia's camp just keep on coming in. First the Finns announced they are letting Vertu go, and now they have issued a press release stating the company will be sharpening its strategy by adding 10,000 lay-offs.

The staff reduction is due to several factory closings in Canada, Germany and Finland, and is planned to happen before the end of next year. Furthermore, three key executives will also be waving a last goodbye to Nokia.

The Xperia ion was announced way back at CES with expected release date somewhere in Q2 this year (April-June). Well, as it usually happens with Sony, the phone will hit the shelves days before Q2 ends.

AT&T will start offering the LTE-capable Xperia ion on June 24. The smartphone will cost you $99.99 with a 2-year contract.

You can check the Xperia ion specs here. It still runs on Gingerbread, but Sony promises ICS upgrade is on the way.

According to AT&T, it will have exclusivity on the Xperia ion, but we suspect that only means the LTE version, as the Sony Xperia ion HSPA is already available in several markets.

If you own a Samsung Galaxy S II or the Galaxy Note and are a regular member of the xda-developers forum, you may already be aware of a bug with some of these devices where erasing the eMMC could hard brick your phone.

This problem would surface if the user tried to flash a custom ROM or kernel that used MMC_CAP_ERASE. Thankfully, developerChainfire came up with an app that would let you know if your device was shipped with a faulty eMMC.

Apparently, this issue has existed for a long time now and even though it was noticed a couple of months ago and was much talked about in the developer community Samsung did not respond to it, until now.

Motorola has announced a new version of the RAZR exclusively for the Chinese market. This version is called the RAZR V XT998 and has a completely new design compared to the current RAZR.

The front side gets new thin, long grilles on the top and bottom with the 4.3-inch display (probably the same unit as on the current RAZR) placed in between. You will also notice no physical keys on the front because the RAZR V XT889 runs on Android 4.0 and also uses the on-screen keys like the Galaxy Nexus.

Thursday, 14 June 2012

Information technology services provider Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp (CTSH.O) said it entered into a $330 million deal with the U.S. unit of Dutch insurer ING Groep NV (ING.AS) to expand the business process management contract between the two companies.

Under the deal, Cognizant will purchase ING's facility in North Dakota and sub-lease some of the insurer's offices in Iowa. More than 1,000 ING U.S. employees will be transferred to Cognizant under the seven-year deal.

Wednesday, 13 June 2012

US users who have been waiting patiently for a (legitimate) way to upgrade their Samsung Galaxy S II devices to Android 4.0 will finally have their day in the sun, as T-Mobile finally released the official Ice Cream Sandwich update for the former Samsung flagship.

The update won't be a straightforward OTA update, however, as Samsung and T-Mobile are requiring users to upgrade using Kies software and a computer.

Another Nokia executive is teasing the addition of PureView technology to the Finnish company's Lumia line of phones and yet again there are no commitments when it comes to dates when such a device might get announced.

Chris Webber, President of Nokia USA and Head of Marketing for North America, talked about the future of Nokia and their plans to expand their market share. PureView is part of the plan and Nokia is working closely with Microsoft to make sure that the technology works exactly right (we approve as long as the phones don't look like this).

Yesterday at WWDC 2012 Apple announced their new Maps app, boasting an entirely new look, crowd-sourced traffic info as well as turn-by-turn navigation. The announcement confirmed the rumors that Apple has now officially stopped partnering with Google for the iOS map application.

The Galaxy S III went on sale just a few weeks ago and it's already started receiving its first over-the-air update. We got it on our unit, too and were eager to see what was changed.

As it turns out, not that much. Samsung has only listed "improved stability" in the change log for the OTA update. And with the Galaxy S III being pretty stable to begin with, it's hardly surprising that the user experience hasn't changed dramatically.

Apparently, Sony's Facebook counter, which we told you about a couple of days ago has reached its magic number, so here is the object of all the anticipation. Meet the Sony Xperia miro - the company's latest mid-range Android smartphone with a solid knack for social networking.

Sony surprised everyone when they announced the Xperia miro and the surprises keep coming - the company also announced the entry-level ICS droids called Sony Xperia tipo and tipo dual. What's unique about the Xperia tipo dual is that it's the company's first dual-SIM device.

Sony Ericsson Xperia tipo

The Xperia tipo is a compact phone (103 x 57 x 13 mm, 99.4g) and features a 3.2" HVGA TFT screen with scratch-resistant mineral glass. It will run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich at launch, and is powered by an 800MHz processor (Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM7225AA chipset).

Four images of what are reportedly two Phone 5 units just surfaced, showing the new design with aluminum back panel to all of us once again. The pictures also confirm a smaller dock connector, a 3.5 mm headphone jack placed at the bottom, a front-facing camera above the earpiece as well as a different camera and LED flash module.

The possible iPhone 5

The devices go all "the Dark Knight Rises" with an all-round black design, going as deep as the external antenna of the device. Even the Apple logo on the back is colored black.

Social networking website LinkedIn Corp said it will provide an additional layer of online security to its members following last week's data breach, while adding that stolen passwords were not published with corresponding email logins.

Some cyber security experts had earlier said LinkedIn did not have adequate protections in place, and warned that the company could uncover further data-losses over coming days as it tries to find out what happened.

Late on Tuesday, the company said all member passwords were now "salted" -- a technique that greatly increases the time and computer power needed to crack an encrypted password.

The company, which has more than 160 million members on its site, said there had been no reports of accounts compromised by password theft.

An unprecedented land grab for new Web addresses began in earnest on Wednesday with fierce competition for new internet real estate including .app, .blog and .web from applicants hoping to break the near-monopoly of the .com top-level domain.

The ambitious plan to liberalize internet addresses attracted 1,930 applications, almost half of them from north America, with Web giants Amazon and Google applying for dozens of domains including .cloud, .buy and .book.

The liberalisation of top-level domains beyond the fewer than two dozen in existence - dominated by .com, .org and .net - is intended to stimulate competition and innovation by giving organizations more control over their Web presence.

Critics say the new suffixes are unlikely to catch on, and some trademark owners have complained that the move is causing them unnecessary expense - at $185,000 per application plus running costs - to defend their online turf.

PayPal announced partnerships with Comcast and Tivo on Tuesday that aim to get viewers shopping during commercial breaks, pauses and at the end of shows. The projects are in development stages right now, but the goal is to have the services up and running later this year.

“The living room, in particular the TV set and the DVR, is the last leg of the stool,” said Scott Dunlap, vice president of emerging opportunities at PayPal.

The Comcast partnership is developing small banner ads that will pop up near the bottom of the TV screen that will let viewers use their PayPal accounts to donate to a non-profit, contribute to a political campaign or get coupons for discounts at retailers.

The head of Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp, embroiled in patent battles with Apple Inc and others, said his company had completed the purchase of U.S. graphics chipmaker S3 Graphics, arming itself with more than 200 patents.

Patent spats with Apple forced HTC to delay the launch of one of its flagship devices in the United States, once its biggest market, and modify others to comply with a ruling by the International Trade Commission (ITC). Apple has since filed at least two other complaints, including one last week alleging HTC was still infringing the patent and demanding emergency action against 29 of its devices.

But HTC CEO Peter Chou dismissed concerns that such disputes have any long-term impact on the company, arguing that investors and analysts misunderstood the situation.

"Patent lawsuits haven't caused any actual damage to HTC," he said in an interview on Wednesday. "Only the Street is worried for us, we're not worried ourselves. We hope the disputes will get more reasonable in the future."